chicken soup

[saint-spoon]

Had friends around for tea over the weekend and made a starter of chicken and mushroom soup fit for any Chinese restaurant. Kept a pot of water with three chopped carcasses garlic and stock veg just below the simmer for around five hours skimming any scum or fat from the surface, strained the liquor and left to cool whilst I picked out the meat. Once the stock was cool enough for the fat to congeal I scraped that off. To serve added chopped mushrooms, garlic and the reclaimed meat and heated the soup through adding slice spring onions just before I put them on the table. Delicious…
More importantly I used as much of the birds as I possibly could, by filleting off the breast and legs for barbeques I froze the raw bones until June started nagging about the lack of space in the freezer, soup time with enough stock left over for later use.

[Meanqueen]

Blimey ! I would never cook anything for five hours I'm toooo mean to pay for the gas
Ilona

[saint-spoon]

Yikes I feel guilty now...... actually it was on a really low heat just to keep it below a simmer (Boiling a liquid uses energy transforming the liquid into gas) so the fuel usage isn't as much as something like roasting a dinner.

[misty]

Slow cooker is the answer. I put my cooked bones in the slow cooker with or without veg. I also use it for gammon or bacon, cooking in cider and laced with honey. In fact i have two slow cookers, 3.5 ltrs and 6.5 litres.
Can anyone understand why people have maggots in their bins? What the hell are they putting in them.

[saint-spoon]

Funnily I was going to give it a go in the slow cooker next time round to see what I got. Cooking a whole chicken in the slow cooker without any liquid gives great results except the skin doesn’t crisp up. The meat stays very juicy and succulent.

[mellonia]

hi

I think it sounds amazing, well done, when my husband occasionally cooks a curry i love it as hate cooking, but absolutely love food. I have a slow cooker will have to give a go.

Mellonia

I think my hatred of cooking is due to my picky kids who moan at everything i try to do healthy. Oh and my husband who thinks my shepards pie is bland, i make a savoury mince with garlic, beef stock, tomatoes, worcester sauce, bland i tell you.

[saint-spoon]

I think my hatred of cooking is due to my picky kids who moan at everything i try to do healthy. Oh and my husband who thinks my shepards pie is bland, i make a savoury mince with garlic, beef stock, tomatoes, worcester sauce, bland i tell you.

I grate carrots into the mince, use plenty of onions (liquidising them adds punch) and become quite liberal with Worcester sauce and Thai fish sauce for seasonoing.

[spudley]

if you make the stock from the bones how long does it keep in the freezer for? and does it need to be cooked for 5 hrs to get the best stock? or could I be a bit lazier.....

[saint-spoon]

if you make the stock from the bones how long does it keep in the freezer for? and does it need to be cooked for 5 hrs to get the best stock? or could I be a bit lazier.....

Not sure how long it will keep in the freezer but I would be happy with a couple of months. You could probably make it quicker but the key is to not boil the liquid which stops the impurities from clouding the broth. With that in mind I tend to taste it after about three hours and keep going until I’m happy. It’s also very important for the first half an hour or so to continually skim off the scum and excess fat which will taint the stock and can make it bitter, once that has all gone I just leave it alone and check up on it every half hour or so. I’m going to give the slow cooker method a go during the week to see how it compares. It’s also very important that it never boils and sits just under a simmer, this prevents the impurities from dissolving. The method is heavily based on a Ken Hom recipe from his eighties cookery programme.